The
Florida Gators beat the Oklahoma Sooners 24-14 in the BCS Championship Game Thursday night in Miami. And the Gators were ranked #1 in both the AP and Coaches polls released yesterday.
The
Florida Gators did everything that could be asked of them to lay claim to the "national championship" with the current system in place. And since their 1-point loss to the Mississippi Rebels in late-September, the Gators didn't just beat their opponents. They demolished them. In those games after that loss, the Gators beat their opponents by a combined 469-131. And that was against 6 ranked teams.
However, the teams that are ranked 2 through 4 (
AP Poll: Utah, USC and Texas) all have legitimate arguments as to why they should be "national champions."
The
Utah Utes, who ran the table in 2004 and ranked 4th in the final AP poll, are the only team that remains undefeated in 2008. They beat quality opponents on their path to perfection. In fact, they beat Oregon State, the only team to beat USC this year, and Alabama, who was ranked #1 for a good portion of the season. They even beat the Crimson Tide by a larger margin (14 points) than did Florida (11 points).
"National champions is really a relative term," [Utah coach Kyle] Whittingham said. "It's an opinion. Until there's a playoff system that's all it's going to be, so we're really not caught up in that at this point and time.
"It's all opinion and there's really no true champion with the system that is in place."
The
USC Trojans finished 3rd in the final AP Poll, but 2nd in the final Coaches Poll. They had the stingiest defense in college football in 2008 allowing the fewest points per game and the fewest yards per game. Their only loss this season was to Oregon State, who finished the season ranked 18th in the final AP poll. Whether right or wrong, USC coach Pete Carroll believes that there isn't a team in the country that could beat his team right now.
"I don't think you know who the best team is. You just know which team got the most votes," said Carroll.
The
Texas Longhorns had an initial argument that they should have been in the BCS Championship game instead of Oklahoma. During the season,
they beat the Sooners 45-35 at a neutral site (Cotton Bowl). Instead,
the Sooners won the tie-breaker, which was BCS standings. The Longhorns beat the Sooners by the same amount of points (10) as did the Gators and both finished with only one loss. The Longhorns only loss was on a last-second amazing play to the team that was ranked #7th at the time and finished 2 spots higher in the final AP Poll (#12) than did the team (#14) that beat the Gators.
Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press argues that "
a playoff system is no better than BCS." His argument is that the sport is healthy based on revenues and interest and that the NFL system is no better (example: Chargers making playoffs over Patriots).
His argument is flawed.
If there were an 8-team playoff system in place, you could have used the current BCS rankings to determine seeds 1 through 8. The seeds would have been (1) Oklahoma, (2) Florida, (3) Texas, (4) Alabama, (5) USC, (6) Utah, (7) Texas Tech and (8) Penn State.
That means that instead of 4 games between those 8 teams, there would have been 7 games (4 in 1st round, 2 in 2nd round, 1 in final round). Play the first-round of games right before Christmas, the "Final Four" on New Year's Day and the Championship Game a week later like now.
There are already too many Bowl games. Who wants to watch teams with mediocre records in weak conferences play? Think the 7-6 Florida Atlantic Owls against the 8-5 Central Michigan Chippewas in the Motor City Bowl. Or how about the 7-6 Colorado State Rams versus the 7-6 Fresno State Bulldogs in the New Mexico Bowl?
As examples, those venue could have been first-round matchup in the playoffs between (1) Oklahoma and (8) Penn State or (4) Alabama and (5) USC. If NCAA football is healthy now, don't you think the New Mexico Bowl featuring Alabama and USC instead of Colorado State and Fresno State would make it healthier?
A playoff season would create greater interest by having better teams play in bowl games and showcasing the arguably 2 best teams in the country in 3 bowl games instead of just 1. It would mean that the "national champion" wouldn't be questioned. And it would generate even more revenues for college football and the powers to be. Sounds like a win-win-win to me.
